" (...) While Latin American “liberation theologians” see the existing inequality between the rich North and the poor South as the problem, the Russian “political Hesychasts” see the problem in the West. “It is quite obvious that the issue is the Western world. Yet, if previously it was equated by the Hesychasts with the Catholic Rome, today the West is epitomized by the cosmopolitan New York. As the Church speaks against liberalism and secularization, She also takes a stand against the political and economical hegemony of the West, thus showing Her interest in the renewal of the civilization self-sufficiency of Russia.” Just as it was the case in the Byzantine Empire 600 years ago, today in Russia the Church, and only the Church is the serious and well-organized adversary of the West with its secular values” (p. 122-123).

I am curious: and just what, except Russia herself, poses an impediment on Russia’s way towards “civilization self-sufficiency?” This is a truly great political technology: if the faithful from the Russian heartland ask their spiritual Fathers about the culprit of their misfortune (“who’s to blame?” – isn’t that one of the central questions of the Russian thought), the answer will be – it’s not the handful of Russian oligarchs who amassed the entire wealth of the country in their hands and who actually reap the benefits of globalization, but “the COSMOPOLITAN NEW YORK,” the “POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL HEGEMONY OF THE WEST,” that’s what made them poor!

The next traditional question of the Russian thought has always been, “What to do?” Maybe the Russian Church will advise Her faithful to practice Hesychasm? Closer to the end of the 19th century, Russians became very interested in the “starets” movement, the latter – for example, the thoughts of the Optima “startsi” – becoming a sort of intellectual fad. After visiting a monastery [where the startsi” lived], the Russian Silver Age philosophers, fainting from a “sophiological” ecstasy, wrote thick volumes about the cosmic mission of the God-bearing Russian people. Meanwhile, those who adopted Karl Marx’s thought that “so far, philosophers merely explained the world, but it is our mission to change it,” took the actual care about “the world of the hungry and the slaves.” And there came the time when “the hungry and the slaves” decided not to put up with all this anymore, and they started to “change the world” with what was characterized as “a feeling of some bestial joviality,” so that crosses flew down from the cathedrals, and the Russian philosophical “Hesychasts” packed up their things and went abroad to find refuge from the “God-bearing people…”

It looks like the new breed of “political Hesychasts” has learned the lesson of history. They have decided, as witnessed by their approval of the “ultra-conservative Startsi of the Holy Trinity and St. Sergius Lavra,” to move straight to Marxism and Communism. (...)"